PROB =
Problem, ENH =
Enhancement Request. Note. Many items were
identified by others (esp. Dave), not me, so credit is due there.
This list of problems
and requested feature enhancements is provided here only to assist
in identifying what needs to be changed to make this PVR even
better, it is not, generally, a criticism of the product, but
a way to say "what would make the product better for me would be
if...." I think the product is great, but this is
just a way of encouraging the manufacturer, Thomson, to make it even
better !
Although I would personally like to see greater
communication from Thomson, sometimes in a competitive field it
simply isn't appropriate for commercial reasons. Therefore, we
tell them what we think might enhance their product to better meet
our needs, and we wait to see which they feel are useful, and
feasible.
PROB 177-1 SCHEDULED RECORDINGS NOT
INTELLIGENT [Level: Annoyance]
When setting multiple recordings which don't overlap the
software doesn't allow the scheduling unless recordings are set in a
very specific order. For example I record two CSI recordings
starting around 9pm-10pm, and then 10pm to 11pm. If I
want to record another programme which overlaps with these it
doesn't allow it. However, if I set the first CSI
recording, then the recording from the other channel, then the 2nd
CSI recording it will allow it. So you can get around this by
re-ordering the way you input the recordings. Note. For the CSI recordings I
amend the guard period so the 1st recording ends at 10pm, and the
2nd starts at 10pm. It appears that the software doesn't
properly recognise when one recording immediately follows another on
the same tuner, and can be recorded on the same tuner.
PROB 177-2 YLD
(YELLOW LIGHT OF DEATH) [Level:
Serious Fault]
A number of people have had a situation where the yellow light
was lite after the box had been in standby. They then couldn't
get the box to switch on. I've had a situation where the box
had the red light but upon switching on there was no sound.
When I rebooted (unplugged) I got the yellow light of death (YLD).
The unit wouldn't boot, i.e. you never get the red light - ready to
come out of standby. There are a number of ways to get
around this, depending upon what problem you have. Typically
unplugging the aerial allows the unit to boot, but when you plug the
aerial back in the box locks up. I've had this twice.
I've removed the hard drive and formatted it, as have one or two
others, put the drive back in and all has gone back to normal.
I've also tried reverting to the previous software, and then back
again to the new one, but didn't find this a fix. Others have
simply left the cable unplugged for a few hours and left the box
booted (out of standby). It may be that there was some disk
corruption which the software fixes in it's own time (hence why some
have fixed this by leaving the box alone with the aerial unplugged).
Others have said that they deleted recent recordings and the problem
went away. The first time I had my YLD I'd left the box
in standby and found it like that when I woke up - so I know it
wasn't something that I did, but rather something had appeared to
happen overnight. If I find a definitive fix I'll post it here.
NOTE. The number of people who have reported this problem
on DigitalSpy.co.uk is just a few, but since it renders the box
unusable unless you take specific actions, it does require fixing
a.sap. It's not a reason to not buy the box as it only appears
to affect a few people. It doesn't appear that it's related to
upgrading the hard drive, but the actual cause is elusive.
One other option might be to have a FORMAT DRIVE option on the menu
- to force format the drive.
Here is a typical example of the
YLD. Also, Pete had a YLD. He unplugged the aerial
and watched and deleted some of the programmes, then plugged the
aerial in again, and it was fine again. Here is
pedrovski's
fix. And an update
here.
PROB 177-3 DAILY
REPEAT CAUSES OVERLAP PROBLEMS
Daily repeat causes overlap problems even when the repeat programme
is nowhere near the programme said to cause overlap. As
an example read
this from Sebby* Another comment from cj_rees was
"Daily / Weekly recording : Weekly works perfectly as far as I can
see, Daily locks up that tuner FOREVER. 2 Daily recordings mean NO
MORE recordings can be set even 12 days in advance!!"
PROB 177-4 WEEKLY REPEATS ARE NOT CHECKED
FOR OVERLAP PROBLEMS
Weekly repeats are not checked for overlap problems at all, and it
is possible to schedule many items to record simultaneously, of
which only two actually record.
PROB 177-5 SOUND SYNC WHEN SKIPPING
FORWARDS DURING PLAYBACK
After using skip forward (thumbnails:off) video runs normally, but
sometimes sound skips in and out and never re-synchs. But can
be cured by pausing and restarting playback.
PROB 177-6 EPG VIEW RETURNS TO PREVIEW
CHANNEL, NOT CHANNEL BEING WATCHED
When you are in the EPG time view (viewing one channel's programmes
at a time), if you set a timer event and then press <exit> it
returns you to the channel being previewed, not the channel you were
on.
PROB 177-7 UNABLE TO EDIT RECORDINGS AS
PER MANUAL
Unable to edit programmes from the "record list" as the manual
suggests (original manual, pp17), you can only delete. In
theory you should be able to set bookmarks, then edit out all the
adverts, before archiving to tape or DVD.
PROB 177-8 UI ANNOYANCE IN RECORD LIST
Deleting a programme from the Record List takes you to the head of
the list, unlike Record History where it simply scrolls the list up
or down.
PROB 177-9 RECORD LIST DISPLAY MIGHT
CAUSE ACCIDENTAL DELETION
Your entry point in "record history" list moves if a programme
finishes recording while you're watching one, so the un-wary might
accidentally delete a different programme from the one currently
being watched. There has also been a discussion about the
pause which occurs when you delete a recording and the fact that
people can think they mis-keyed and repeat the action, which
accidentally deletes a 2nd recording. Dave's idea of a
recycle bin would fix this, but so would just putting up a message
saying it is being deleted and not allowing any keystrokes until it
actually is deleted.
Also, haven't seen this myself but maybe I've been lucky - if you
press the green button twice by accident, while deleting a
recording, it can lock up the whole box with potential loss of
entire library. I won't try that just now.
PROB 177-10 CHANNEL STEALING !
Dave found an extremely minor bug in the time-slip/chase play
function where it steals the tuner from you if you are watching a
chase play as programmes end. Scenario:
Recording one item from BBC ONE, one from CHANNEL 4, both programmes
20:30-21:00.
Switched to BBC ONE and rewound to beginning to watch in time-slip
around 20:55.
Next recordings set BBC ONE and CHANNEL 4 both 21:00-22:00.
At 21:00 while watching in time-slip, message appeared "The tuner is
needed for a recording ..." with the red button cancel. When the
counter reached zero, tuner switched to CHANNEL 4 !
PROB 177-11 MULTIPLE TRANSMITTERS
There's a problem for some people where they have signals from
multiple transmitters. The Thomson seems to take the first
signal it detects, regardless of whether the alternative transmitter
has a stronger signal. I haven't experienced it myself so can
only repeat this, which has been mentioned on the forums too.
It seems that the way the tuning is handled needs a little
refinement for this particular problem. I'm guessing that it
might be possible to re-point your aerial to the strongest one, and
it was suggested that if it scanned all channels from both
transmitters, you might be able to use Favourites to select those
with the stronger signal.
PROB 177-12 RECORDING IS MISSED
(status: Unconfirmed)
When you try and record a program from EPG starting 00:00 to 00:59
it fails to record. This seems to be because the day doesn’t change
until you get to 01:00. I have to say I haven't seen this, but
will try to re-produce. See also
here for an example. Stephen
emailed me about this at the start of April and has confirmed that
his box was using the 1.7.7 firmware. Now that the clocks have
gone forward the problem "could" have potentially disappeared.
PROB 177-13 RETURN FROM AV FEED-THROUGH
GIVE BLANK SCREEN IS USING RGB
If you "Press AV button" and the box goes to feed-through, when you
press it again and if you're watching RGB, it reverts back to
Video, which means you sound and a black screen.
PROB 177-14 RE-SCAN CHANNELS WIPES OUT
FAVOURITES
If you need to add new channels, when you re-scan it removes all
your favourites and you have to add then back.
PROB 177-15 SOME RECORDING APPEAR TO TAKE
UP A LOT OF DISK SPACE
There have been situations when you try to add a recording which
results in your disk reporting that it's full, when it shouldn't be.
When you look in Recording List it does indeed appear to be full.
If you go through previous recordings, when you delete one, a
considerable amount of disk space is returned. There appears
to be a bug where some recordings "appear" to take a lot of disk
space. It's pretty difficult to work out which one, but as you
watch and delete, or just delete, each one and check the space left,
you will find out which one it was ! It seems from some
reports that this "might" be related to Corrupt Recordings below.
PROB 177-16 CORRUPT RECORDINGS
Occasionally, and I've had this, you may get the yellow "message"
light and when you go to the Setup->Messages menu you see "Corrupt
recording detected", with a "system" category error. You will
typically find that on further investigation there will be no
thumbnails and on playing back sections of the recording it appears
that the audio track is there, possibly also the video.
Sometimes the recording will play out perfectly. This seems to
be a new feature in 1.7.7, but nobody appeared to report corrupt
recordings with the previous software. This needs a little
more investigation. It is, from my experience, quite
rare. One annoying thing is that you seem to get these
messages every time you go in to Recording History, and many times.
Some have reported the same message 30 times.
PROB 177-17 CHASE-PLAY GETS CONFUSED
Sebby* reported "There sometimes appears to be a mix up between the
2 tuners when you are watching a recording that is still in
progress. Occasionally, you will be rewinding the recording and it
will jump to the other tuner, displaying another channel."
PROB 177-18 ARCHIVES RECORDINGS PAUSE AT
END
If you output a recordings to DVD there is a long pause at the end
of the recording. This means a long pause between recordings
when you are archiving. I haven't archived any of mine in this
way, but welcome more information to expand the information - to
allow a quick resolution.
PROB 177-19 TWO RECORDINGS WHEN USING INSTANT
RECORD
"The most consistent fault, was that if I pressed the ‘instant
record’ button, it would create two entries in the record list.
Sometimes it would ‘stammer’ on playback, both video and sound. The
sound dropped out completely on a couple of playbacks, but okay
after stopping and starting. Nothing too drastic though - just
annoying."
PROB 177-20 LOCK-UP IN RECORD LIST MENU
IF AV PRESSED
Ashley said: "One problem I have come across a couple of times is
the box locking up when I attempt to do a “Manual Recording” after I
accidentally press the wrong button. It goes something like this
(ref. P 15 of the manual): Menu > 3 (for Record List), OK (to add
manual recording), Select Channel, then press down arrow. Type
in the Title. If I now press the AV button (by mistake)
while still in the Title section, the box locks up, not responding
to any button presses, and ultimately needs a power cycle. It’s
possible that it does this when pressing other buttons like the Wide
button or the other nine buttons below there."
ENH 177-1 MAKE VOLUME CONTROL ON REMOTE
CONTROL STB VOLUME
Please could Thomson make the volume buttons on the
remote control the volume on the STB ! I've got 5
remotes already, I can get that down to 4 if I don't need one to
control the TV volume. When you press the volume control
on the Thomson remote it does flash the lights on the front of the
unit so we know that the DHD4000 is receiving the signal - we just
need Thomson to add the facility for it to control the volume out of
the box. Pretty please
ENH 177-2
BRING UP TIME LINE WHEN PRESSING PLAY DURING A
RECORDING
In a recording pressing Play doesn't bring up the progress/timeline
banner - I think it should, otherwise how do you know where you are.
You can press pause, and then play again, but you shouldn't need to
pause the recording just to see how far you are through it, or how
long to the end.
James also requested that there be some sort of user-defined timeout
for the banner, perhaps 1-10 seconds.
ENH 177-3 ABILITY
TO MUTE WHILST IN MENUS, AND SOUND IN MENUS
It would be nice to be able to mute the volume when you are in the
menus, without leaving the menus, and going back in.
Also, you should be able to mute immediately after changing
channels, or coming out of menus. At present the programme
info banner is displayed and you can't mute until this disappears
several seconds later. Secondly, in some menus the
sound is turned off altogether, but not all. It would be good
if it was consistent and remained available in all menus, but
obviously with the ability to mute it.
ENH 177-4 PROGRAMME SYNOPSIS DURING
PLAYBACK
There should be a way to view the programme synopsis in playback,
other than stopping the recording - which takes you back to the
Recording History menu. I'd use the up-arrow key to
bring this up for 5 seconds.
ENH 177-5 CHASE-PLAY FROM RECORDING LIST
It would be nice to be able to watch a programme which is in the
process of being recorded, from the beginning, by pressing PLAY or
OK whilst in the Recording List menu, e.g. highlight it and press OK
or PLAY. At present you have to tune to that channel then
press rewind until you get back to the beginning - which can
be a bit of a spoiler !
ENH 177-6: JUMP FACILITY IN PLAYBACK
During playback of a recording I would like to see a jump facility.
Those left and right arrow keys (next to OK) do nothing during a
playback but could be used to jump forwards or backwards, a set number
of
minutes. I'm not encouraging ad-skipping, although I do, and I'd
imagine most PVR users do. It would be good to have a new menu
option which specifies the number of minutes (in 1 minute intervals)
that these buttons skip. And that would be a very good
selling point. Many people might feel that his was a great
feature.
ENH 177-7: LAYOUT CHANGE TO FULL-SCREEN GUIDE
"Pressing the GUIDE button twice now displays a full screen program
guide. Press GUIDE again to return to the one with the preview
window.". Well, this feature was nice, but really doesn't
work. For the line (channel) that you're on, after a few
seconds you get the first line of the programme synopsis, then a
second or so later another. Each time the display moves all
the others lines down - it's very distracting. Better to have
the programme synopsis fixed on the bottom two lines, or top top
lines (in a window), and not keep moving the display around each
time you move the arrow keys up or down. I don't know many
people who use this because it's difficult to focus on the display
as it keeps moving.
Some people would like to be able to view a whole selection of
channels at once (full-screen), with what's on now - using the right
arrow key to move forward through time, as in the normal EPG view.
Some would like to be able to view much more of what's on for one
channel, e.g. what's on throughout a good proportion of the day -
all on one screen, e.g. full-screen. Both should be possible.
Perhaps the way to do this is to just have one EPG screen but with
the ability to switch on/off the picture of the current channel and
thus use that space for the synopsis. Personally I think that
would probably make things more simple. But I would make it
selectable from the EPG screen, e.g. blue key (not used at present).
ENH 177-8 ADD MON-FRI ONLY TO
DAILY/WEEKLY REPEAT FUNCTION
Add Mon-Fri only repeat to Daily/Weekly function. There
is no way to add a weekdays only repeat.
ENH 177-9 INSTANT RECORD SHOULD WARN ON
OVERLAP AND ALLOW CORRECTIVE ACTION
If you hold down the REC key to start an instant record, if there is
an overlap it just won't do anything. It should warn of
overlap (i.e. this programme cannot be recorded as it would cause an
overlap) but allow function through to the Recording List menu so it
is possible to delete something else.
ENH 177-10 RECYCLE BIN
Remove "schedule for delete" and everything deleted could be
soft-deleted into a "recycler menu" (for recovery if required). The
box should then automatically hard delete stuff in reverse
chronological order. Also provide a user hard delete from the
"recycler" for stuff really never needed.
ENH 177-11 QUICK-PICK CHANNEL CHANGE
The quick-pick channel change (pressing OK when viewing normally)
should scroll the whole list up if you're on the top line, and down
if you're on the bottom. Currently it only scrolls the list up if
you're on the top left, and only scrolls down if you're on the
bottom right. Going left/right/up/down when not on the top or bottom
line should be as it currently is, i.e. no scrolling.
ENH 177-12 QUICK-ADD RECORDING
One touch add - from program guide pressing "green" perhaps should
add to record list without going through the intermediate step of
seeing the record list.
ENH 177-13 SHOW PROGRAMMES SET TO RECORD
IN EPG
Indicate which items within EPG have been set to record, perhaps in
bold or a different colour, or with an "R" at the right-hand side.
ENH 177-14 SHOW VIEWING STATUS FOR
RECORDED PROGRAMMES
Give programmes in "history" a status, like [p]art viewed, [v]iewed
or [n]ot viewed.
ENH 177-15 SERIES LINKS
The Tivo PVR enables you to set up 'season passes' or 'series links' so that it
will automatically record every episode of a particular series, e.g. Corrie,
Eastenders, Andromeda, etc. I don't know of other PVRs, other than
Tivo and Sky+, that have this at present.
Durkin Media Limited, who represent 4TV have told me that "my understanding is
that the series link is available within the 4TV software.
However, each product is tailored to suit each clients specifications,
and as yet it has not been specified for the Thompson PVR."
Thomson last said that this might be a possibility in future
software.
ENH 177-16 ABILITY TO DELETE ALL
BOOKMARKS IN A RECORDING
Option to delete all bookmarks at once from delete menu in record
history.
ENH 177-17 BETTER HANDLING OF CORRUPTION
DURING A PLAYBACK
Interference occasionally corrupts reception of Freeview (in general
the QAM64 channels). When viewing the DHD4000 live (and other
Freeview kit) this interference rarely affects sound, and mainly
corrupts video for a fraction of a second, with the sound carrying
on with no interruption.
When playing back such a recording, the DHD4000 skips the section of
corrupted video AND sound. Is it possible for
this event to be handled in a better way, rather than removing the
corrupted section, since it plays back perfectly live, could it be
left in place? Occasional video corruption is bearable, lost
chunks of sound are extremely distracting.
ENH 177-18 MORE INFO IN RECORDING HISTORY
I'd like to see more info in the Recording History screen, e.g. what
channel a programme was recorded from, what time it was recorded,
whether sub-titles were recorded. There isn't room to
fit everything on the display but if the yellow button (not used at
present) could bring up a dialogue box, or another view, showing
this information, it would be useful. The only way to tell
what channel something was recorded from is to watch it.
Little things like that make it easy for us to jog our memory as to
why and what we recorded.
ENH 177-19 MORE INFO IN RECORD LIST
Once you've scheduled a recording you can't see any synopsis, or
what channel it is on, although start and end time is there.
I've like to see a view which has these on. Seeing the
disk space allocated is nice, but isn't strictly necessary (but
that's my opinion) - if you schedule too many recordings it does
tell you anyway. Perhaps use that space for a programme
synopsis with channel.
ENH 177-20 USE HOURS AND MINS INSTEAD OF
JUST MINS
God my brain hurts - and I can usually add up really quick !
However, I'd rather the display didn't quote, for example, "95mins"
in the now/next info, and on the Record List menu (with the
programme synopsis) - much nicer to say "1h 35mins", or even "1h35m"
(if space is a problem). That's much more natural for the
human brain.
ENH 177-21 FORCING ASPECT RATIO FOR 4:3
CENTRE CUT-OUT
With the 0.31.0 software on my 4:3 TV, if a programme was
transmitted in "unsafe" widescreen - that is, even if you say to use
Centre Cut-Out, it would display with black borders top and bottom,
you were able to press the WIDE button and force it back to 4:3
Centre Cut-Out - and it stayed there until the adverts came on.
You then had to repeat this when the next part started - but at
least you had the ability to override the aspect ratio. From
the 1.7.7 software it now instantly obeys the "unsafe" mode flag and
you can't make it stay how you "might" want it. On the 0.31.0
software I thought this was a real plus. Since the DVB
specification only tells the broadcaster to display in letter box
automatically if the "unsafe" flag is used, and doesn't say that
they must never, ever, allow a button which temporarily
changes the aspect ratio to another, it would be really good to have
this functionality back. It's not critical as I'm getting a
widescreen TV in the next month or two, but for others they might be
disappointed that this important feature has been disabled.
ENH 177-22 DIFFERENT PRE AND POST
PROGRAMME GUARD TIME
I'd like to see the Guard Time split in to "minutes to add at the
beginning" and "minutes to add at the end", e.g. I'd like to be able
to add on 2 minutes to the beginning automatically, but, for
example, 5 or 10 minutes after a programme - automatically.
Currently the number of minutes is fixed the same for both before
and after.
ENH 177-23 PAGE UP AND DOWN IN EPG
Whichever view you use, either by channel, or by time, you have to
cursor up and down a line at a time. You can type in the
channel number directly and move to that channel, but, particularly
for the time view, it would be nice to be able to move up or down a
screen-full at a time. I previously suggested using the
Program +/- keys, as they are right next to the up/down arrow keys.
ENH 177-24 CONFIRM TO STOP A RECORDING
It would be nice if there was an option in the setup menus, or just
a feature, which asked you to confirm when you go in to Recording
List and select to stop a recording. If you programmes are
recording at the same time, there's only one down/up arrow between
them, and we all know what people are like on a Friday/Saturday
night ! Just something which says "Confirm you want to
stop recording ..... ?"
ENH 177-25 NEW BOX AND LARGER HARD DRIVE
Not really an enhancement to the current box, or software, but many
people want to make the box slightly quieter, and also use a larger
hard drive. It would be good if the next revision used a
slightly different enclosure design, and if the hard drive had a
larger hard drive as standard. I'm sure Thomson are already
working on that. Bigger box, with larger fan, doesn't mean
quieter. The larger fan in my Sony RDR-GX300 is very noisy,
much more noisy than the Thomson fan. But either using a
heat-reducing silent hard disk caddy, not plastic, (and no fan) or
putting it in a larger box, with the fan at the back of the box,
will fix any noise issue (well, with the right fan .... Papst?)
ENH 177-26 SHOW MANUAL SCENE MARK, EVEN
IF SCENE GENERATION DISABLED
When you have scene generation disabled, you cannot manually create
a scene - or rather you can but it doesn't appear in the record
history.
|
